This motion picture, based on the actual events recorded in history as Night of the pencils (La noche de los lápices), tells the story of seven teenagers, five boys and two girls, who, during a time of economic and political unrest in Argentina in the mid 1970s, protest for lower bus fares in Buenos Aires.

Contents

Plot

Pablo is arrested and tortured in an Argentina jail.

The kids wanted reduced student bus fares so they take to the streets and protest. At first, under Isabel Martínez de Perón's government they succeed, but their protests draw hostile attention from the military regime, led by Emilio Eduardo Massera, that overthrows Peron. The "leftist agitators" are not tolerated by the new government.

The ensuing crackdown on the student social activities is demonstrated in the film when police break up a school dance wielding swords and on horseback.

Later, six students are kidnapped in the middle of the night, and the police claim ignorance about their whereabouts.

Pablo (Alejo García Pintos), a seventh member of the group is later arrested by the police. He learns that his friends have been brutally tortured by governmental authorities and he's not spared. The police give him electric shocks while radio music masks his cries.

He was fortunate to survive and tell their horrific story. His classmates were never found and became part of the thousands of desaparecido students who were kidnapped and never seen again by their families or friends.

Background

Book cover.

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Basis of film

The motion picture was based on the non-fiction book, La noche de los lápices, written by María Seoane and Héctor Ruiz Núñez. The book profiles seven high school student activists from La Plata, Argentina, including lone survivor Pablo Díaz, who gives the authors his testimony. The students were kidnapped by the government after protesting for cheaper bus fare.[2]

Pablo Díaz was incarcerated for four years. The other six students became a part of the 236 Argentine teen-agers who were kidnapped and disappeared during the military dictatorship.[3]

Filming locations

Distribution

Night of the Pencils first opened in Argentina on September 4, 1986. It has been featured at various film festivals including: the New York New Directors/New Films Festival, the Moscow Film Festival, where it was nominated for the "Golden Prize," and the Toronto Film Festival.[4]

In March 2003 the film was included in a slate of films shown at the 1st International Film Festival on Human Rights, held in Geneva, Switzerland.[5]

Critical reception

Additional students arrested.

Critic Manavendra K. Thakur was appreciative of the direction of the film and wrote, "Olivera seems to have kept his integrity mostly intact. He does not shy away from disturbing realities, and he draws a surprisingly complex portrait of the students, their captors, and the students' parents. The film's accomplishment in this regard is considerable and therefore worthy of serious attention...[and] this is especially true of the film's second half."[6]

Caryn James, film critic for The New York Times, also liked Olivera's work, and wrote, "Mr. Olivera builds his film on irony and contrast, so the visual beauty of the early scenes - the deep blue night in which cars and lights glisten - calls attention to the ominous unseen political dangers. In daylight, the once-beautiful, now crumbling buildings, including the high school itself, become emblems of a country falling apart, not knowing what to preserve from its past."[7]